Interventions at FPS

Beat Dyslexia

Beat Dyslexia is a literacy programme that is designed to help children acquire the literacy skills of reading, writing and spelling. It takes children from the early stages of letter recognition through to full literacy.

The children work through a structured programme with a learning assistant either on a one to one basis or in a small group on a weekly basis. The children are encouraged to use their senses to learn the letter-sound relationship. Looking and saying as well as hearing and writing reinforce the learning. Wooden letters are used which allow the child to feel the shape of the letter and link this to speaking and hearing the sound.

Precision Teaching

Precision Teaching is an intense teaching method that can be used to increase a child's proficiency in number facts or to accelerate their progress in word reading and spelling skills. The method aims to help a child recall the targeted facts in order to be able to apply them independently in class. It has been shown to be effective in helping children acquire or maintain automatic skills in their learning.

The children work for 10 minutes, generally 4 times a week on a specific, individual target with a learning assistant. In the session the learner works with a variety of visual and kinaesthetic activities at a fast pace. At the end of the session, they are tested to assess their progress. The daily performance is recorded on a graph. This encourages and challenges children to improve their score over the weeks, and has been shown to increase motivation.

1stClass@Number2

1stClass@Number2 is a maths intervention for children, predominantly in lower Key Stage 2, and is additional to the child's daily maths lessons. It is delivered by a trained learning assistant to a small group of children in 30 lessons over about 10 weeks.

The lessons are organised into 5 topics;

All About Number

Exploring Place Value

Addition and Subtraction 1

Addition and Subtraction 2

Towards Multiplication and Division

Drawing on research, the topics focus on key aspects of number that cause the most difficulties for young children.

The intervention has a Post Office theme, with the children using letters, parcels, postcards and house numbers to support their learning. These help the children to think and talk about their mathematics.

The children's progress is monitored with an assessment before they start the intervention and when they have completed it. To date we have had some excellent results with children making an average of 10 months progress in under 3 months and class teachers reporting an increased confidence in the children.

Success@Arithmetic is a light touch calculation-based intervention, predominantly for pupils in year 5 who have difficulties with arithmetic proficiency and need support to improve their understanding of number and written calculation skills. It helps them to make faster progress and to catch up with their peers through a mastery approach.

Comprehension support is used to help children who decode text adequately, but who fail to get full meaning and enjoyment from their reading because of difficulties with comprehension.

A trained teaching assistant promotes the habits of a good reader in every session and uses the ‘inference training’ approach to support children’s understanding. Studies reveal that effective readers:

Know that understanding is the goal of reading

Activate background knowledge and working memory

Integrate information/ideas and make inferences to get gist

Have high expectations of text making sense

Make predictions, ask own questions and watch out for “answers”

Can visualise when appropriate

Monitor meaning, notice breakdown and use breakdown strategies

Read frequently and enjoy reading

These habits are discussed and demonstrated in each session. In these sessions children also get additional practice at answering written comprehension questions. To help further, a child may also be offered 1:1 reading sessions with a teaching assistant and parent readers.

Read, Write, Inc.

Read, Write, Inc. is a phonic based intervention developed by Ruth Miskin. It is aimed at children in year 3 who need additional support to progress in phonics. The program provides a structured and systematic approach to teaching phonics and is designed to create fluent readers, confident speakers and willing writers.

Interventions to support children with Social, Emotional or Mental Health Difficulties and/or Challenging Behaviour

The interventions available include:

SEAL Groups (Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning)

This group work supports an early-intervention approach for young children who need additional help to develop their social, emotional and behavioural skills. It is similar to other small-group interventions that schools may be using with children who need additional help in other areas of the curriculum.

The intervention is based on the principle that some children will benefit from exploring and extending their social, emotional and behavioural skills by being members of a supportive, small group that is facilitated by an empathic adult. This group should build on and enhance the curriculum being offered to each child within the whole-class setting.

The purposes of group work for the children will include:

facilitating personal development;

exploring key issues in more depth;

practising new skills within a safe environment;

learning more about self;

developing ways of relating to others;

feeling safe and taking risks;

being better equipped to make wise choices;

being reflective

Longford Park Support

Flixton Primary School also works closely with the outreach team from Longford Park to support children who are displaying disruptive and challenging behaviour.

These sessions usually take place weekly on a 1:1 basis and offer individualised, monitored support from a behaviour specialist.

Social Stories

Social stories are short descriptions of a particular situation, event or activity, which include specific information about what to expect in that situation and why.